Imbroglio
by V-San
Summary: An alternate ending to the S7 episode 'Afterimage' –He'd not planned for this. Even after saying those things to her, he'd expected the situation to resolve itself and for everything to be fine. How foolish.


_Imbroglio_

Ben Sisko couldn't believe he was doing this again. Once again, witnessing the aftermath of the death of a friend.

That it was essentially the same friend as it had been a few months ago only amplified the feelings of despair that he held within, covered over with the mask of carefully measured calm he had placed over his features before he stepped through the doors of the temple on the promenade.

He would have found it odd, that she had picked the place that Jadzia died to be the place of her own death, had Kira not informed him that she had seen the young Trill Ensign there many a time, staring at the place where her predecessor had died.

And that was essentially where this had all started wasn't it? Jadzia Dax had died, leaving Ezri Dax to unwillingly take her place. Now she had, both in life and death.

The report had come to him in the early hours of the morning from Odo's security detail. Ezri Dax's body had been found in the Bajoran temple on the lower level of the promenade. She had been sprawled across the steps leading to the orb within the temple, her own phaser still gripped in her left hand. Set to kill.

What were more disconcerting were the long cuts across her abdomen. Most were deep and centred around the area where the symbiont lay, and all seemed to be able to trace their origin to Ezri's blood stained fingernails. It seemed she had attempted to claw the Dax symbiont out of her body before turning the phaser on herself.

Ben wished that he could honestly say that he had no idea why Dax would have done something like this, that the last time he saw her she was laughing and seemed to have no troubles at all. But that would be a complete lie.

She hadn't been alright the last time he had seen her. She'd looked about a step away from a total breakdown as she passed the data Padd containing her resignation from Starfleet over the desk to him with a shaking hand.

And what had he done? He'd told her that she might as well resign, that she should spend her life stirring mud in the symbiosis pools on Trill, that her life spent as the ninth Dax host was a waste.

He'd intended it as a joke at the time, to scare her into action so that she could make a stand for herself, just like Curzon had been so fond of doing to him through all the time they'd known each other.

'_But she told you herself didn't she?' _A smug sounding voice in the back of his mind told him. _'She asked you not to call her 'Old Man', told you she wasn't Curzon and you did it anyway.'_

He had. Even though he'd told her that he saw her as Ezri Dax, he was still too willing to look for the faces of Curzon or Jadzia instead.

He'd not expected his words to go down smoothly, expecting that Ezri would perhaps need more time to see that she did belong in Starfleet, even expecting her to go to Doctor Bashir or Kira for advice. He'd never planned for her to do this though, to turn her own phaser on herself. Kira had told him that she'd been visiting the temple, that she had death, even if it was not her own, on her mind, but he'd done it anyway. Stupid. Stupid and arrogant.

"Reports show that no one else other than Dax entered the temple between now and the time she was found. There has also been no trace of a struggle or of any other attempt of assassination against either Ezri or the symbiont." Odo's voice broke through his guilty thoughts. The changeling had walked over to him at some point, but Sisko had been lost to all the world but for the altar steps which had claimed his friend not once but twice.

Both Sisko and Odo knew that the investigation was nothing more than a formality. It was easy to see what had happened here. Thankfully, Julian had not been on duty in the medical bay when Ezri had been found, the medical emergency summons instead reaching another doctor's ears, but it didn't make what Sisko had to tell the rest of his senior staff any easier.

"Constable," he said finally, bringing Odo's attention off of the report and onto him. "Make a note of the approximate time of death and contact Starfleet command. Tell them to record the death of Ensign Ezri Tigan."

"Tigan, sir?" Odo asked.

Sisko gave him no reply, lost to his thoughts once more. He supposed that in the end, he'd refused to see, until it was too late, that Ezri Tigan was all she'd ever really wanted to be.

* * *

_AN. I don't write or get a lot of ideas for Star Trek fic, for DS9 least of all, so I'm not too sure how well this turned out to be honest. It's obviously OOC on Ezri's part, but I always wondered, what if she was pushed too far during those few months where she still wasn't quite sure of herself? We already saw her break down into tears (twice) and run off to the temple when Garak yelled at her, so anything was possible in my mind. Sisko was really used as a tool to set this in motion. All the times I've seen Afterimage, I've never understood his scene with Ezri where he basically calls her a failure - seeing him write it off as just a joke never made quite enough sense for me._

_Anyway, enough of my rant, hope you liked it~_


End file.
